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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191395">Dark and Quiet</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC'>SandrC</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hey There Centaurs! [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Not Another D&amp;D Podcast (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Character Study, Introspection</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:11:26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191395</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry thinks about <em>shadows</em>. About how you think your shadow is <em>detached</em> from you. Maybe it's only <em>tangentially</em> attached at the feet, cast across flat surfaces like the floor or the wall—or <em>the ceiling</em>, if the lighting is right and you're making your kid laugh as you make shapes and animals with your hands, voices going along with it all—but never <em>close</em>. You don't <em>ever</em> think your shadow is close enough to touch you.</p><p>It <em>is</em> though. Your shadow lives in the crevices of your joints, under the pads of your fingers, in the hollow of your eyes. Your shadow presses against you like a second skin, burrowed deep in your mouth and tucked under your chin and everywhere the light touches is <em>without</em> but the light touches <em>so little</em>. Your shadow is <em>so much more</em> than you think it is, <em>so much closer</em> than you think, <em>so much heavier</em> than you think.</p><p>You would miss it if it was gone.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Hey There Centaurs! [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196600</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dark and Quiet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>First Eldermourne fic insofar as I can tell, so I will wear this with pride.</p><p>Look, y'all...I wanted to hold off until we had more episodes and more plot and more characterization but like...the phrase "carved my shadow from me" piqued my angsty little interest and I just couldn't <em>not</em>, yanno? You see my problem???</p><p>Anyway, guess I'm doing the damn thing. Hope it doesn't disappoint. I'm sure down the line this'll be canon noncompliant, but for now? My sandbox.</p><p>(I immediately fell for all three of them but I love me a sad man with a heavy heart. Hardwon was an easy target and I think so will Henry. I have a type apparently lmao.)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Henry lies, half awake, and thinks that maybe he might have...<em>undersold</em> his experience with the Horror called the Prophet. He's used to underselling himself because if he <em>doesn't</em>, folks might get <em>ideas</em> about what he's capable of. Still...he thinks about how that might come back to get them in the ass later.</p><p>(How strange - <em>relieving</em> - <strong><em>alien</em> </strong>it feels to have a <em>them</em> after so much time of it just being a <em>him</em>. The strange and panic-inducing weight of <em>relief</em> in his lungs. The calm that drowns him as he tries to sleep, knowing there are two people out there—and a book or maybe three—that <em>won't</em> fuck him over if given a chance. He's not used to that. Safety in numbers, and all. Not like this, personal and all.)</p><p>Henry thinks about the Prophet and sleep and <em>pain</em>. How <em>disorienting</em> it was to come to—two steps sideways from sleep, this unconsciousness, in the same way that having your eyes open under the water is the same as seeing—and feel a terror that <em>hurts</em>. A pain that <em>lives</em>. Burrows under your skin and <em>begs</em> you to pay attention because <em>nothing</em> will <em>ever</em> feel like this. <em>Never again.</em> It's the worst pain you've felt<em> thus far</em> and, if you're (un)lucky, <em>you'll never feel anything after.</em></p><p>(Beside him, Zirk is out like a light or, <em>rather</em>, more like the corpses he works with. Draped in a way that looks almost <em>painful</em>, stained silver hair a curtain obscuring tired eyes closed in rest, he snores softly through a nose that isn't broken <em>too</em> bad but <em>is</em> swollen and probably hard to breathe around. Henry can understand, his own having been set too many times to count. But before all this, before the calm, he remembers Zirk, hunkered in the stairwell of the watch tower, glass rod focus clenched between his teeth <em>so tightly</em> that Henry was amazed it didn't <em>crack</em> under the pressure, crossbow bolt finding its mark as a zombie nearby staggers, the smell of cooking—rotten, bad, too-sweet and certain to make <em>anyone</em> sick—meat filling the air. Someone who, despite his fragility and how easy it would be to snap him without a second thought, <em>trusted him</em>. And now he was sleeping, unprotected and unbothered with his presence.)</p><p>Henry thinks about <em>shadows</em>. About how you think your shadow is <em>detached</em> from you. Maybe it's only <em>tangentially</em> attached at the feet, cast across flat surfaces like the floor or the wall—or <em>the ceiling</em>, if the lighting is right and you're making your kid laugh as you make shapes and animals with your hands, voices going along with it all—but never <em>close</em>. You don't <em>ever</em> think your shadow is close enough to touch you.</p><p>It <em>is</em> though. Your shadow lives in the crevices of your joints, under the pads of your fingers, in the hollow of your eyes. Your shadow presses against you like a second skin, burrowed deep in your mouth and tucked under your chin and everywhere the light touches is <em>without</em> but the light touches <em>so little</em>. Your shadow is <em>so much more</em> than you think it is, <em>so much closer</em> than you think, <em>so much heavier</em> than you think.</p><p>You would miss it if it was gone.</p><p>He thinks about waking up from not being asleep - not <em>quite</em> - <em>unconscious</em> perhaps - dead <em>maybe</em>, should he be so (un)lucky - and feeling the sensation of the Prophet carving his shadow away from him with a blade so cold <em>it burned.</em> Even as an incomplete action, the memory is <em>white hot</em> and seared clean into his memory.</p><p>He thinks about <em>pain</em>.</p><p>(Bruised knuckles pounding bloody into cheeks, breaking noses set with splints already, teeth spat out on floors, shoes against ribs and jeering laughter, jagged fangs and <em>something else</em> against his leg as he's dragged into the depths, a blow against his temple that blinds him for a moment and then a moment more as <em>the blood won't stop</em>, a talon across his nose taking a chunk of it with it, a halberd in his hip with a whispered apology, a hard blow against his head, being left and told that <em>he wasn't good enough</em> - that <em>he wasn't worth it </em>- that <em>something</em> about him was <em>wrong</em>. Hitting rock bottom so hard he can feel it <em>days</em> later, the ache lingering in his bones, his joints protesting an age he hasn't felt till now.)</p><p>Pain and fear and being <em>without</em>. He knows those things intimately. The pain from that day lingers—part of him wonders if the Prophet carved his fortune away with his shadow, unable to take the whole thing so it grabbed what it could out of spite and, like some nasty thing in the stories he recounted to his kid, consumed something good he had and ran—and he has grown numb to it but...this new ache is comforting.</p><p>(Fia, <em>not yet asleep</em>, is arguing softly with Bukvar, her cigar a dim red light in the train car she calls home. He thinks about the way she seemed <em>just</em> as lonely as he was, eyes lighting up when he half-assedly promised his friendship for a good turn—his own foray into the shoes of a trickster in those tales his kid liked so much—and the soft way she showed them her home. Rusted sword drawn as she flung encouragement and healing from the battlefield, the scars across her body proving that, like him, she had seen wear and tear, but <em>unlike</em> him, she was willing to <em>fight</em> for what came next instead of <em>laying down and taking it</em>. The joyous way she insisted <em>he had something of worth</em>. Comfort and fear in a soft gaze and a softer smile.)</p><p>He thinks about the feeling of being shorn of something essential. Of the fear that cloaked him for days, drenched in his own sweat as he tried to rationalize what he had been through. It's not like Horrors aren't <em>uncommon</em>—the Reaping Season is dangerous for <em>everyone</em>, after all, and his experience wasn't anything <em>special</em>—but he understood why babies cried in the dark. It took him <em>days</em> before he could stand to be on the streets at night. <em>Longer still</em> before he could pick up a blade again. How his eyes still meet his shadow and sometimes it's cast wrong, crooked against surfaces, like a reflection broken by ripples.</p><p>His hands shook, sometimes, and he always blamed it on his age but <em>that was a lie</em>.</p><p>(I'm <em>fine</em>. I'll be <em>okay</em>. It doesn't hurt. It'll make me more distinguished. Not <em>the worst</em> I've felt. <em>Yeah</em>, I can make due without her. <em>Nah</em>, I can <em>definitely</em> cover for you. <em>Mmhmm</em>, I've been keeping up on my regimen. I'll talk to you later. Of course, <em>of course</em>, I didn't see <em>nothing</em>. I'm <em>fine</em> on my own. <em>It's better this way</em>. I don't need any help.)</p><p>The woods are quiet. Well, they're <em>a type of quiet</em>. Not the quiet just before a bell sounds, corpses jerking upwards to claw at anything they can reach. Not the quiet on a boat, water mirror-still before a tendril breaks surface and drags someone to a cartilaginous beak. Not the quiet in a room where two people refuse to talk about their problems, content to let it stagnate with distance, becoming tepid and <em>sour</em>.</p><p>It's quiet in a <em>full</em> and <em>living</em> way—insects and birds and animals, the wind through the plants, the popping - <em>creaking</em> - <strong><em>groaning</em> </strong>of trees growing, the soft hum of the earth beneath their feet breathing. A million noises that are <em>quiet</em>.</p><p>The bead curtain rattles in a soft breeze. The metal around them settles in the cooling darkness. Book pages rustle against leather belts. Zirk snores raspily, slobbering a bit. Fia sucks on her cigar as Bukvar whines, fearful but <em>excited</em>.</p><p>
  <em> His heart beats. </em>
</p><p>He thinks about <em>pain</em>—white hot and excruciating, dull and hollow, comforting weight that pins his limbs in place—and <em>sleep</em>—not quite and also <em>worse</em>, alone and <em>certainly</em> deserved, corpse-like and snoring and <em>comfortable</em>—and <em>lies</em>—the ones said, the ones unsaid, the ones told to oneself—and he thinks about <em>luck</em>.</p><p>He thinks about the Prophet. <em>Loss</em>. <strong><em>Gain</em></strong>.</p><p>"If you can make <em>one thing</em> go my way tonight, I will be your friend <em>forever</em>." A strange promise in the moment. <em>Desperate</em>. <strong><em>Lonely</em></strong>.</p><p>Fated, perhaps.</p><p>He thinks, idly, of shadows. Of light. Of their codependency.</p><p>Henry thinks <em>maybe</em> he lucked out, in the grander scheme of things. Three lonely people being lonely together. A sad assortment but...not the <em>worst</em> he's had. Make due, maybe, or make <em>better</em> than due.</p><p>His eyelids, heavy, flutter, and he throws the fight with exhaustion.</p><p>Questions like that—existential bullshit and dread and horror and Horrors—deserve to wait for the daytime. For now he can just rest. Even crooked, covered in blood—ah, <em>fuck</em>, he's gonna hafta go get a change of clothes from his cousin's place before doing shit, <em>dammit</em>—beaten and bruised, <em>certain</em> he's gonna have one <em>helluva</em> crick in his neck when he wakes up, Henry can't find <em>any</em> reason to care.</p><p>Best night of rest he's had in a <em>long</em> while, he figures.</p><p>(He dreams of pain—aches in weary bones and cuts from a battle that could have gone <em>worse</em>—and fear—Zirk dropping, unconscious, and him suddenly aware that he's really <em>only</em> good for the one thing, isn't he, but he's not alone right now coz Fia has their backs—and lies—"that thing tried to take my shadow" but that's not the whole of it, they don't <em>need</em> to know just yet, and the rest is <em>his</em> to bear, really. He dreams, and when he wakes up there's friends (<em>friends</em>?) and bread (no eggs, <em>thanks</em>, and <em>certainly</em> no cheese) and smiles and laughter and somber understanding and bodies and people and he isn't <em>alone</em> right now (hold tight to that before it leaves) <strong><em>and—</em></strong>)</p>
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